I disagree strongly with your characterisation of this as foul. Western society remains male-dominated and, as men, we are usually completely blind to the privilege we have. "Boys will be boys" has many serious implications from school bullying (OK, not so much school bullying as duct-taping a child to a post) to out-and-out sexual assault of an unconscious woman. Allowing people to excuse foul behaviour by boys/men with "boys will be boys" creates a society in which men can do what they want to women and girls and nobody can stop them, it also creates an expectation that maleness means meanness, which demeans us all.Stu wrote:Sorry, but this is FOUL! This is an example of the odious type of Gloria Steinem feminism that demonises boys and men while portraying females as perpetually oppressed. I would like the writer to crawl back under her stone and die"Boys might start to realise that – gasp! – they’re not in fact another, superior species. Girls might start to question leniency extended to male people who do not in fact look or act any differently to them. We’d have to stop spouting b***ocks such as “boys will be boys” in order to justify all manner of dickish behaviour."
If someone, man, woman or anyone else, decides to be a dick, that is their choice and they are making that choice because they want to be a dick. It is not because they are any particular sex or gender. If we allow men to behave like that just because they are men, we all suffer. It is long since time we left that attitude behind us like we did the dark ages.